Medical Research Council scientist knighted, UK
Building on Nobel Prize-winning work by Cesar Milstein and Georges Köhler at LMB, Dr Winter's research has made pioneering contributions to unlocking the huge medical potential of monoclonal antibodies. It brings the prospect of customised treatments for cancer, transplant rejection, autoimmune diseases and infections closer to reality.
Antibodies are produced in the blood to recognise and bind to invading foreign material, singling it out for destruction by the body's immune defences. In 1975 Milstein and Köhler devised a way to select and purify unlimited quantities of individual, or 'monoclonal', antibodies (MABs) from among the mixture of different antibodies produced in the immune response of laboratory mice. The profound medical implications and commercial potential of their groundbreaking work were recognised by the 1984 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine.
MABs rapidly found many applications, including diagnosing viral infections; blood typing; tests for pregnancy and cancer; and purifying other therapeutic molecules, for example interferon. But the immediate therapeutic uses were limited because mouse-derived MABs provoke a strong immune response in humans. This rapidly inactivates them and can cause unpleasant or even dangerous side-effects.
Dr Winter's research has focussed on overcoming this obstacle to make MABs suitable for use in humans. He pioneered techniques to 'humanise' mouse MABs in 1986, and went on to develop the test-tube production of human antibodies.
Today, MABs comprise a quarter of all biotech products in clinical development, with more than half of them based on technology patented by Dr Winter.
In 1989 he and David Chiswell founded Cambridge Antibody Technology and this has led to a the development of range of human therapeutic antibodies, one of which Humira(TM) is marketed by Abbott for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. In 2000 he and colleague Dr Ian Tomlinson set up a company, Domantis Ltd. (formerly Diversys) to develop commercial applications of single antibody domains, another invention that emerged from his laboratories.
The MRC receives royalties on Dr Winter's inventions, and has an equity stake in both Cambridge Antibody Technology and Domantis. Others with MRC connections included in the Queen's Birthday Honours list are:
-- Professor Peter Harper (knighthood)
-- Professor Alan Craft (Knighthood)
-- Dr Ruth Hall (Companion of the Order of the Bath)
-- Dr Gillian Morgan (DBE)
-- Professor Annette Karmiloff-Smith (CBE)
-- Professor Nairn Wilson (CBE)
-- Professor Charles Downes (OBE)
-- Professor Christopher Haslett (OBE)
-- Dr Lesley Rushton (OBE)
-- Professor Elizabeth Simpson (OBE)
-- Mrs Ruth Hunt (MBE)
©2004 Medical Research Council
View drug information on Humira.
Consiliului de Cercetare Medicalã knighted om de stiinta, Marea Britanie - Medical Research Council scientist knighted, UK - articole medicale engleza - startsanatate